hodder: the duty of the scholar in politics. 57 



All parties at that time agreed in counseling peace. f Jefferson, 

 the father of democracy, expressed the same sentiment. In an 

 official letter in 1793, while Secretary of State, he said: 



" We love and value peace; we know its blessings from experi- 

 ence. We abhor the follies of war and are not untried in its 

 distresses and calamities. Not meddling with the affairs of other 

 nations, we hope that our distance will leave us free in the example 

 and indulgence of peace with the world." 



Again in writing Monroe in 1823, advising the issue of this very 

 declaration, he said: 



" I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never 

 to take an active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political 

 interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, 

 their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forces 

 and principles of government are all foreign to us. They are 

 nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the 

 destruction of the labor, property and lives of their people. On 

 our part never had a people so favorable a chance of trying the 

 opposite system, of peace and fraternity with all mankind and a 

 direction of all our means and faculties to the purposes of improve- 

 ment instead of destruction." 



And Monroe in the very message, now made the excuse for so 

 much warlike demonstration, took pains to repeat this doctrine of 

 non-intervention: 



"In the wars of European powers, in matters relating to them- 

 selves we have never taken part nor does it comport with our 

 policy to do so . . . .With the existing colonies or dependencies of 

 any European power we have not interfered and shall not inter- 

 fere Our policy with regard to Europe is not to interfere with 



the internal concerns of any of its powers." 



Statements of this character were frequently repeated by later 

 statesmen. Van Buren in official letters, while Secretary of State, 

 within five years of the issue of the Monroe declaration, said: 



"It is the ancient and well settled policy of this government not 

 to interfere with the internal concerns of any foreign country." 



" An invariable and strict neutrality and an entire abstinence 

 from all interference with the concerns of other nations are cardinal 

 traits of the foreign policy of this government. The obligatory 

 character of this policy is regarded with a degree of reverence and 

 submission but little if anything short of that which is entertained 

 for the Constitution itself." 



